Pain Equals Safety
by BeccketAndCastle
Summary: Beaten, every night for ten years and still strong. Or so she seems. Clary's defenses are slowly crumbling when the man she has been taking these beatings for finally discovers the truth. Will Sebastian kill her (or him) or will Clary's fighting spirit keep them alive? Bad summary but good story! No supernatural stuff just ol' mundies. DISCLAIMER I OWN PLOT BUT NOTHING FROM TMI!
1. Chapter 1

Struggling to breathe, I lay on the floor, forcing the black from the edges of my vision.

"You stupid slut! What is wrong with you!?" Sebastian screamed.

"I am sorry, i am sorry.: I whispered hoarsely, every breath a struggle. Another kick to the rib cage. Steel toed boots, i think with a gasp. Stepping on my legs he walked over to the kitchen counter. He grabbed an oven mitt and grabbed the pot of boiling water sitting on the stove. Rushing over he looked me in the eyes and said,

"this is what you get you stupid slut! This is all your fault. If you were good and made him suffer, then this would stop happening, but sweetie, i think you have forgotten,," I shook my head frantically, knowing what was coming next and trying to prevent it, even though I knew his anger at this stage, and there was nothing I could do about it. "So lets remind you". Slowly he poured the boing water all over my shoulders and back. My body arched in pain, but no noise escaped my mouth. I couldn't scream. Screaming would just make him angrier. Tears streamed down my face, gathering in a pool in front of me. Instead of focusing on the ignition of blistering searing sores on my back, I focused on the pool of water. Each drop as it spilled from my eyes and fell into the pool, creating a beautiful ripple pattern. _Focus on something beautiful instead of something ugly Focus on something beautiful instead of something ugly Focus on something beautiful instead of something ugly Focus on something beautiful instead of something ugly Focus Focus FOCUS_, I yelled to myself. It still hurt. I still would wake up in the night screaming silently if I accidentally turned onto my back.

Finished with the water, Sebastian squatted down to talk to me in my ear.

"You are such a whore. If you could just keep your legs closed for a few hours, then this wouldn't happen. Well now, that is not really true but that is definitely a contributing reason". He didn't speak with malice or anger, just cold efficiency, like a doctor diagnosing his patient, which was almost as scary as his anger. "You know, you should hurt him. You should hurt him real bad. You should make him cry. Oh not physically, because you being the worthless pussy you are, you could never do that," his voice lowered to a whisper, "Fuck with his heart. Tear it apart with stiletto heels and stomp across it like sluts like you are so good at doing. Break his heart so terribly that life will not seem worth it anymore. Make him so fucking desolate, that he 'just can't live anymore'." He grabbed my hair and yanked my head up to his lips to whisper angrily, "I want his spirit broken, knowing that the girl he loves is in love with his best friend." Pulling me so close his lips almost brushed my ear, he continued. "I want his heart and spirit mutilated, and then," he paused, just breathing heavily in my ear, "when he is on my floor begging for death, when he had been shredded from the inside out, I want you to take his belt off, give him that last moment of false hope, and then dash it to smithereens. Wrap that belt around his neck, and pull." Roughly throwing my head on the floor, I dashed my head on the marble, nearly completely blacking out my vision.

He stood up and looked down at me like he was some kind of raging god. "Can you do that for me whore?" Even with my split lip bruised and bleeding, I managed an insane smile. His whole face flushed beet red with rage as he quickly squatted to grab my hair once more. "What the hell are you smiling for?" Keeping my lunatic smile I whispered just loudly enough so he could hear me.

"Go fuck yourself," then with a bloody and snotty lougie, I spit in his face.

"Ugh!" He was startled. He ran over to the kitchen and washed it off his face.

PING! Grabbing my phone, he saw a text message from my mother, Be home in 15 min babe. Luvu. He chuckled at my mother's ignorance and threw the phone at me, where it landed on my burned back, causing me to hiss in pain.

"You know that if she comes home and sees anything, Jace will be dead before you even get to the police. Good luck babe. Your safety? Or Jace's life?" Whispering one more time he said, I think we know which one you will choose. Night Clare-Bear." Smiling slightly, he exited out of my garage door, leaving me to clean up the blood and water from today, just like every other day before that. Struggling, I cleaned up all the blood, not having the energy to clean up the water too. I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote Needed some help with math, gone to Simon's, will be back in an hour or two.

Grabbing the keys to my car, I gently got in. I don't remember much of the drive over. I remember that I couldn't tend to the burns on my own. I needed someone to help me with those and Simon was the only one I could trust right now. I stumbled up his driveway and walked right in. We hadn't bothered knocking in years. I limped up the stairs to Simons room and walked in. He was lying there, on the bed, just reading with those glasses sliding down his nose. When he saw the state I was in he jumped up. But before he could come over I leaned on the door and shook my head. Confused, he just slowed down.

"If you can't keep this a secret, I will walk out of this room right now, and I will try and fix this on my own, but I don't think I can." I looked at him with those pleading eyes I knew he couldn't resist, and his hesitation crumbled. Jaw clenched, he nodded and caught me just as I fell.

"Simon," I said with a smile, "I have something to tell you." And with that, I finally lost the battle with the darkness creeping in on my vision, finally allowing myself to fall into a deep sleep.

**YES NO MAYBE SO? JUST THOUGHT ABOUT THIS AT 12 AT NIGHT SO I WILL GET TO SLEEP NOW. PLEASE LEAVE REVIEWS THEY ARE LOVELY GIFTS OF LOVE :) THANKS GUYS FOR EVEN BOTHERING TO READ THIS**


	2. Chapter 2

_Stars_. I was underneath stars. I blinked to clear my vision and I realized I wasn't under stars, well or real ones anyways. They were the shitty sticker stars Simon and I stuck to his floor in the third grade. I smiled at the memory before the pain of that lip pulled me back to the present. I was lying on my stomach, on what I assumed to be Simon's bed, with my head laying off the side. Gathering my strength I pushed myself up off the bed hoping to find Simon, and I underestimated how badly I had been hurt. Stars swam in front of my eyes and I gasped as the pain. A pair of strange hands pressed me back down onto the bed. They weren't Simons soft meaty hands, but thin calloused ones. I didn't recognize them and I started to struggle, I was scared. Whimpering I tried to rip my arm out of this persons strange grasp. It was a girl. I relaxed slightly, still whimpering.

She was beautiful. The classic beauty, the ones wars were fought over. Long black hair and flawless pale skin. She tried to smile slightly to easy my obvious fear and tension but all I could spit out was one word.

"Simon." My voice sounded like that damn door in the back of my house that creaked whenever opened.

She smiled.

"He is just in the other room. Why don't you lay back down yea? Just so you don't reopen the scabs on your back." She said reassuringly, calmingly stroking my arm. Cautiously, I laid back down, suddenly realizing what I was wearing. My underwear. Nothing else. And they weren't even mine.

Noticing my sudden realization she hurried to explain.

"The burns on your back needed to be treated immediately, which lead to me taking off your shirt and bra. They grew less violent around your bum area but those needed to be cleaned too so I just took off all your clothes and gave you some soft, cotton, and new underwear of mine, something that wouldn't irritate the blisters." She spoke in a clinical voice, but not in the way Sebastian did, but more like a true doctor who actually cared where the patient ended up. When I finally lay back down on the bed in the position I was before, I could feel her reach to grab something and then sit down right next to my back.

With my arms spread out, she started to spread ointment on my back. The instant relief was the most cooling bliss I had ever felt in my entire life. My eyes rolled up into my head and I moaned. She chuckled.

"This cream does wonders. Best part is that it had a cooling agent that actually repairs as it dulls pain. Feels bloody wonderful after spilling a pot of hot coffee across my arm." Her tone turned from light-hearted to serious. "Though I have to say, this looks like a little more than a pot of coffee. Do you want to tell me how you got these?" A short silence ensued. "And not just this, but the massive bruising on your legs and arms as well as the bruised rib cage? Not to mention the likelihood of a concussion from that nasty hit you must have taken to get this" as she took her free hand to tap the raised cut near my temple.

I didn't respond. What could I say? I didn't know her at all. So I did what I usually do when someone asks about the bruises. I shook my head and didn't say a word.

She had finished with the ointment and she put her cooling hands of relief away. I whimpered at the loss of her hands gently smoothing the liquid bliss across my back. She chuckled but continued to put away the cream, but to also retrieve some bandages. Slowly, she guided me up into a sitting position, with my back facing her. Placing the end of the clean roll of bandage between my breasts, she clinically wrapped the roll around and around until my entire torso and shoulders were tightly, but not painfully, wrapped. I turned around to thank her when I found her with tears in her eyes.

My voice still shaky, I tilted my head to the side in question.

Sniffling, she smiled sadly. "It just reminds me. I know what happened" my eyes widened, "Yea. I was abused for a long time too. Never to this extent, but the occasional slap or gut punch weren't too uncommon." Wiping her nose, she transformed from pained college student back to medical professional, "These injuries are consistent with abuse. You want to tell me who and why?"

"Can I have some water?" My voice cracked. And her eyes widened.

"Of course, give me a minuet." She raced outside and down the stairs to get me a glass of water. While she did that, I limped over to the bathroom where I took a look at myself in the mirror. I looked fucked up. And I was. My entire left side was covered in purple, green, and yellow, while the right side, the side that took Sebastian's most recent beating was an angry and violent red and blue color.

"I look like someone covered me in fucking paint."

"Yea you do." The girl said, startling me. She led me back to the bed where she just stared at me questioningly as I downed the entire glass of water.

"You have a name?" I asked.

"Why yes I do thanks so much for asking." She said with a completely straight face. I snorted.

"What is it?"

"Isabelle but for Christ's sake, call me Izzy." She said with a smile.

"Well Izzy, thanks for everything that you did for me but what happens to me kinda doesn't involve you."

"It does when the guy I am interested in calls me in a panic saying his best friend is passed out on the floor with crazy bruises and burns and he needs a med student to take care of her. Also it involves me when a woman is being beat. That shit pisses me off so yea. It kinda does involve me." She says it all in about 2 breaths.

"Its a long story."

"I don't have any pressing appointments. You?"

"Yea, one with my bed at home." I start to walk out the door but Izzy doesn't even try to come after me.

"You do realize that you should be seen by a doctor and as a med student I could easily report it and you would be taken to a police station where an ME would examine you and not too kindly I might add and strange men would interrogate you there. I just thought you might like to do this here than there." She said this with no inflection, forcing me to take her seriously. I limped back to the bed and sat in front of her, picking at the knitted blanket on top of Simon's bed.

"I was about 14 when I fell in love." She listened, knowing that what I was saying would be relevant later. "I fell in love with a guy named Jace. He was sweet and kind but obviously had gone through some real shit in his life. We hung out and we "dated" as much as a 14 year old could." I swallowed, trying to gather my thoughts in an organized formation. "I used to be a pretty girl and at the time multiple guys liked me, but I never paid attention to any one of them because I was too enraptured with Jace. I didn't realize that Jace's best friend Sebastian had fallen in love with me. Or well he thought he loved me." Taking a deep breath I continued.

"Sebastian found me after school one day. He was always nice so I wasn't expecting anything bad. We were behind the school just talking and then the next thing I know, he is kissing me. Well, me being the feminist girl that I was, I kneed him in the balls." Izzy snorted, then chuckled at that. I smiled slightly. "He groaned in pain but I think it was just arousing for him. I kept trying to hit him but he just kept kissing me against that wall. It was shaped like a closer L so no one could really see us. Eventually I bit his lip so hard it bled and he yelped and jumped back. I tried to scream but before I could get even half a second of it out, he backhanded me and I went down. Surprised and afraid, Sebastian forced himself on me. But he..." my voice faltered. Izzy grabbed my hand and gave me an encouraging look. With another shaky breath, I continued once more.

"But he didn't stop at kissing. Or groping. My boyfriend's best friend raped me against the back of the school. It kept going like that for a few months. I got good at covering bruises and I tried to mix up where I got picked up but he always found me. I grew distant from Jace because I was so ashamed and I was so worried. After every day, Sebastian would warn me, saying that if I ever told anyone, he would kill Jace. He was a fucking sociopath. Anyways, eventually Sebastian told Jace I was cheating, and what is cheating at 14 anyways? But yea. Jace broke up with me and then my life went to shit.

Jace became a total bully to me at school and picked on me whenever he could. Parents split up and then my mom ran away then came back about a year ago. Dad always was a drunkard, and so was my brother. On the days in high school that Sebastian didn't touch me because he had wrestling or something, it was Jon and my dad's turn. Lucky me though, about after a year after Seb forced me to go to the same college as Jace and him, both Jon and my dad died in a bar fight." About halfway through my talk, I stopped having any emotion in my voice, but Izzy was crying silent tears.

"Loosing mom nearly destroyed me but Jon and dad? I didn't feel a thing. But going back, ehm I went through the rest of high school either being raped or beaten or both. College was the same. The worst part was, that I am still in love with Jace." Izzy's gasp was small as she tried to cover it. I smiled sadly. "He has been a complete ass but I still love him. I think I always will. Sebastian has been trying to beat or rape that out of me for over ten years and it hasn't worked yet."

"What do you mean?" Isabelle asked with a quivering voice.

"Every day after the first 2 years he gave me a choice. I could rip out Jace's heart and hurt him and break his heart and kill him. Or Sebastian would keep coming for me. I have been taking beatings for Jace for 10 years and he doesn't even know I go to the same school." I laughed humorlessly. Izzy looked horrified.

"So there. You wanted to know? You going to tell me how fucked up I am? How I should have just told someone? If I told someone, Jace would be dead. So what? Are you going to tell me how pathetic I am? Trust me, you aren't the first." She did none of the above. She just enveloped me with a huge hug. Gasping I said,

"Easy! Easy! Burns! Burns!"

"Oh sorry!" She loosened her grip on me but still held me in a loving embrace. Other than Simon, I think that has been the first time that someone has done that in a very long time. Izzy pulled back and looked me in the eye.

"What is this Jace's guy's last name?"

"Wayland. Why?" Does she know him?

"Fuck. Well yea I know him." She said with a pained expression, but I was oblivious.

"Can you maybe just tell him that Clary says that she is sorry and—"

"Clary."

"Maybe you could drop a hint about going somewhere so I could do it in person—"

"Clary!"

"What?" I said irritated.

"Jace Wayland is my adopted brother."


	3. Chapter 3

"Oh you mother fucker!" Screamed Isabelle when Jace entered her line of sight. Once she got Clary to fall asleep, she snuck to the campus where Jace was taking classes and having wrestling practice. He was surrounded by a group of his friends, but she didn't care. She was so pissed she was seeing red and they just all blurred into the background. She sped walked to the surprised Jace and slapped him right across the face.

"What the hell Isabelle?!" Jace yelled when he had recovered.

"Yeah what the hell? The fuck is wrong with you?! Do you really not know what you did? What you continue to do! I knew that at 14 you got really fucked up but I didn't think it would get this bad!" She was screaming at him by now. Glaring at the gawking boys she screamed, "GET THE FUCK OUT! LEAVE. NOW!" They all scattered. Very quickly.

"What did I do?" he yelled back.

"What did you do?! WHAT DID YOU DO?! I will tell you what you fucking did! Do you remember Clary Fray? Your girlfriend back in high school?" His face paled at her name.

"Why?"

"Well you nearly killed her today." She looked him dead in the eye when she said this.

"What? What happened! And I didn't nearly kill her!" He yelled, confused.

"No. But because you are a fucking asshole and you couldn't pay attention to one person but yourself, your girlfriend almost died. Yea. Guess what. One of your _buddies_," the word dripped in sarcasm, "has been beating the fuck out of her for 10 years."

"What?" His face paled even further at that and he looked scared.

"Yea. Scalding, beating, and even cutting her every day for ten years. You know something? She was given an option. She could stop all of the pain and all the rape" Jace looked like he wished he was dead right now, "if she just tortured your heart and spirit and then killed you. Then it all would be over. But her being the fucking amazing and kind and _beautiful_ person that she is, she took that abuse for you. FOR YOU, YOU MOTHER FUCKER. AND YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID? YOU BULLIED HER ALL THROUGHOUT HIGHSCHOOL AND THEN YOU PRETEND LIKE SHE DOESN'T EXIST IN COLLEGE!" Isabelle looked murderous right then. She loved her brother, but what he had done was so wrong it made her want puke.

"What?" Jace looked like he was in shock. He was terrified. And that calmed her anger a bit.

"I am taking you home. You can come and see her and see what you did to her."

**Jace's POV**

What? She cheated on me. She broke my heart and left me when I needed her the most. I needed her. And she left me.

I was trying to make sense of all of this in my mind and part of me was trying to defend myself and then another part, the overwhelming majority, was just disgusted with myself.

When Sebastian told me that Clary was cheating on me, it broke my heart. My parents had just died and I needed her to be there for me and the cheating just made me angry and bitter. But rape? And beatings? How did all of this happen? I just don't understand, I thought to myself.

My inner war halted the second the car did, right in front of that guy Simon's house, the one Isabelle had her eyes on. Good luck to that poor guy I thought. The small smile that passed my lips vanished instantly when I remembered why I was here. And I was fucking scared to see what I would find.

**Clary's POV**

I woke up to the sound of a car pulling up a gravely drive way, Simon's driveway. Slowly I got up and was able to pull myself into a sitting position. Someone knocked and Isabelle entered. Smiling slightly she came over to the edge of the bed and started to unwrap the bandages on my back.

"Why are we taking these off?" I asked.

"I want to reapply some cream and I need to put some fresh wrap on." She handed me a blanket to cover my front once the bandages were unwrapped.

"Stand if you can right here please." She had me stand up, facing away from the door, and before I could ask why, she had started with the cream again. Suddenly, I didn't care. Once she was done with that she stopped.

"Oh crap. I forgot the bandages downstairs. Let me go get them. Don't move a muscle." She said.

"Not an issue considering even breathing hurts!" I shouted as she left the room. Wincing at the sharp intake of breath, I held the blanket up to my front and let my back cool down with the cream wonderfully attracting cold air to cool my burning flesh.

"Oh my god. What have I done to you?" Said a horse and horrified voice behind me. I whipped around, and there was Jace Wayland, in the flesh.

He reached to cup my face but I flinched and with a look of sorrow, he lowered his hand.

"What are you doing here Jace?"

He looked surprised at how steady my voice was, and to be honest, so was I.

"Isabelle told me what happened. I can't..." His eyes glanced up and down my body, but not in a lustful way, but in a pitiful way. That just made me angry.

"She couldn't have told you everything because I didn't tell her everything. Do you remember the day I started distancing myself from you as a freshman?" I spit out the words with a fiery anger. He nodded slightly. "Well the day before was the first day that I was raped." He went so pale he looked like he could have been dead. "Yea by one of your best friends. He raped me every day for months and when he was too busy doing something else, my father and brother beat me. And you know what the worst part was? I could have dealt with all of the rest. I would have survived!" At this point I was backing him up to a wall screaming.

"You fucking broke up with me! You thought I was cheating on you, which was a lie told by the guy who raped me and continues to leave me with such beautiful artwork," I said as I spun around to give him a better look at my back. When I turned around he had started to cry and before I realized it, so was I.

"You fucking broke me and yet still what did I do? I took all the beatings that were intended for you for 10 years. 10 mother fucking years, every day! And on top of that, you bullied me and hurt me all through high school and you just forgot about me in college!" At this point he was backed up against the wall and my finger stuck into his chest. We were both crying.

"You hurt me more than anyone else ever had! You forgot about me and yet what did I do? I still took them! I reveled in each gallon of boiling water being poured on my back because I knew that it wasn't you getting it! I am still fucking in love with you and you think that because you see the damage you caused, you can just come back in and live life like it is normal? YOU FORGOT ME! SO NO FUCKING WAY! NO way..." My sobs became more violent, and my tense body relaxed around every cry.

He put his fingers underneath my chin and forced me too look him in the eye.

"I never forgot you. How could I?" His eyes screamed sincerity and sorrow and regret. And before I knew it, his lips landed on mine, in the softest brush of a kiss I had ever had.


	4. Chapter 4

His lips were still so soft. His lips barely brushed against mine before he pulled away, fingers still cupping my chin. His forehead rested against mine and we exchanged breaths. My eyes were closed and I reveled in this intimacy that I had missed for a whole decade, but then I remembered who I was. Who he was. What he had done. And I pulled back, just enough to gather my wits.

"What... was that?" I was breathing hard, still rather dizzy from the whirlwind of emotions that swept from the bottom of my toes to the top of my head.

"It... it was me saying I am so sorry. Oh god Clary, I am so sorry," his whispery voice was still hoarse and choked with tears. They were streaming down both of our faces.

_No._ I backed up and turned away from him, my lips still tingling. _No, concentrate, focus focus FOCUS_. I screamed internally.

"Jace, I don't know..." I cursed myself for my inability to articulate like he could. He came around so we were once again face-to-face.

"Clary I am so sorry. When Sebastian," my face paled at the name, "told me you had cheated on me, I was so angry. My parents had just been murdered and I needed you there for me." He choked up.

"And I would have been!" I whispered back, a fresh round of tears streaming down my face as I remembered how much it broke him to loose his parents.

"I know. I know. I was so self-centered I couldn't see through my own depression to see what I was doing to other people. I realize that now." He looked at my bare arms holding up that sheet. They were bruised in the shapes of fingers. All the way up and down. Where they weren't bruised, they were scarred or scabbed. He ran his fingers up and down my arms, in the gentlest whisper of a touch. I still got goose bumps from his touch. He looked like he wished he was dead, and that scared me.

"Jace, I was angry earlier and I am sorry but this isn't your fault." He tried to speak but I put my finger over his lips. "Jace, I am not angry at you for this. This is what I have tried to avoid telling you over the past decade." He winced when I once again unknowingly reminded him of how long this had been going on. "I am angry for what YOU did to me. Ignoring me and hurting me." His head hung in shame. "But you have to understand something." I pulled on his chin like he had done to me, not moments before. "I still forgive you." He jumped a bit in surprise. "Yea. As crazy as you may think it sounds, how could I stay mad at you? You got me through all those years." He had some doubt in his eyes. "The thought that you were safe. The knowledge that you were safe from him" I swallowed around this large knot in my throat, "kept me fighting. You kept me fighting." I swallowed again, a tear slipping out of my eyes. But this one wasn't of sadness. I was happy he was here. Finally.

He looked at me and still looked disgusted with himself.

"I still love you Jace. I always will." My smile grew wider when he once again leaned forward to lay his forhead on mine.

"What have I done to deserve you?"

"You saved me." And then, I leaned forward, pressing my lips to his, pouring all of the love I felt into that one kiss. It grew heated but when he tried to put his hands on my waist I gasped, the sharp pain of the burn still present. He broke away from me and looked at my back. His fists tightened with anger.

"Please. Can I see what that bastard has done to you?"

"Jace, I don't think thats a good idea." I said weekly, knowing that he would see my body and think it ugly. He took a gently hold of my neck and kisses me, silencing my protests. He grabbed the sheet from my hand, and started to pull. I whimpered a bit and he stopped, putting both hands to my neck. A few minuets later, he pulled again, and I gave in. I let him pull away the sheet and he just kept on kissing me. I put my hands to his that rested on my neck gratefully. He slowed the kiss and looked up and down my body. He backed away and I put my arms over my chest, self-conscious of my ugly body. He gently grabbed my hands and pulled them away, kissing me chastely one more time.

"You are beautiful. I just need to see what he did to you. Okay?" With my eyes closed, I just nodded. He circled around me and saw all of the bruises and all of the scars I had from the past decade. There was silence for a while so I turned around so see him barely containing himself.

"I will kill him. I will cut his nuts off and put a bullet through his fucking head for this.

**HEY GUYS SO I KNOW THAT I HAVENT PUT AN AUTHORS NOTE FOR A WHILE SO I JUST WANTED TO SAY A FEW THINGS. SMALL CHAPTER, SORRY JUST WANTED TO GET THIS UP THERE SO I CAN ENJOY THE REST OF MY WEEKEND WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT THIS.**

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